There is a real SS trust fund. It's $2.7 trillion in non-market, interest bearing T-bills are part of our $16.4 trillion national debt and held under "Intragovernmental Holdings," as distinct from the publicly held portion of the debt, which is about $11.4 trillion.
SS is a pay as you go system with today's workers paying the benefits for today's retirees. SS has been running in the red since 2010 and will continue to do until all of the SSTF is exhausted and benefits cut to just what the revenue will provide. Right now, the shortfall in revenue is being made up by cashing in the T-bills from the SSTF using the General Fund. Since we borrow 42 cents of every federal dollar spent, SS is contributing to the publicly held national debt.
T-Bills are a piece of paper that says the Federal Government will pay the face value, in other words it is not an asset, it is a token of debt. To make this easy for you to understand, I will use as an example a token of debt you may have yourself - a mortgage note.
You would not consider your mortgage note to be an asset, because it represents money you don’t have. The only difference between your mortgage and Uncle Sam’s T-Bill is that the Government can print money to pay it off. Only problem is printing money just lowers the value of everyone’s money.
Calling T-bills an asset is crazy. Go sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.
Thank you for reemphasizing this point. This debt is just as legitimate as that owed to investors in T-Bills including Chinese, Japanese, American, and other investors in government securities. A major factor in the early turn of Social Security receipts from surplus to deficit was the long term high unemployment rate. While our government is clearly on an unsustainable financial path, demagoguing the Social Security program is not going to solve the spending problem. Like it or not, a major segment of the population participated in the Social Security program for all of their working lives with the expectation of a certain return and they do not have the time left to go in another direction. They are not going to just lay down and die.